


praying that this is salvageable

by fannishcodex



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: Alternate Reality, Alternate Universe, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-02-12
Updated: 2013-02-12
Packaged: 2017-11-29 01:16:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/681039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fannishcodex/pseuds/fannishcodex
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Misbegotten Sons AU sidestory. Amon is taken by Koh. The Lieutenant will do whatever it takes to bring him back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	praying that this is salvageable

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: For Lieumon Week prompt "Spirit World." To make a long story short, Misbegotten Sons is an AU where Yakone plucked a scarred Amon from the aftermath of the firebender’s attack that murdered his biological family, and took him in, making Tarrlok his adopted and older brother. They were close before, but eventually grew estranged and are now on opposite sides of a power struggle. First part of that story here at my fanfiction.net account: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8190741/1/misbegotten-sons and also here on my AO3. 
> 
> Disclaimer: I own nothing related to the Legend of Korra.

Amon gasped as he was thrown hard against the ground. He immediately worked his aching muscles to get up--he grew very still as the faceless hogmonkey examined him, prehensile tail holding it upside down from a branch in the dark cavern.

Though the poor creature moved to poke his mask with such aimless innocent hands, Amon seized its wrist.

His skin crawled as Koh chuckled.

"My dear novice," said the Face Stealer with a woman's thick lips and sapphire-bright eyes.

###

Korra gaped at Mustache guy--no, the Lieutenant, one of the other Equalists had called him that.

"What?" No way she heard right.

She immediately knew that was the wrong thing to say when he flicked on his kali sticks, electricity crackling.

But he nodded his head, and some Equalists dragged in a bound Bolin and Mako.

Before Korra could protest, the Lieutenant said, "I've told you, Amon's been taken by Koh, one of your predecessors' old enemies. So, no one to take _their_ bending away--"

The Lieutenant nodded to the brothers, then twirled one kali stick, electricity arcing. "--I'll just have them killed instead, if you don't meet my demands."

Korra shuddered. Those eyes warped to look completely green behind the goggles looked utterly cold, colder than any time she'd seen him before. "I haven't even contacted Avatar Aang yet, there's no way I can go into the Spirit World, let alone take you there--"

The Lieutenant jabbed the kali stick first into Mako's gut, Bolin fought madly against his captor, eyes blazing, the Lieutenant raised his weapon to strike him too--

Korra fought against her own restraints, damning her chiblocked body. " _No, don't, please_ \--!"

"It won't be a slow death for them, not if you--"

"I _can't_ \--"

_Stupid stupid don't **cry** not in front of someone with eyes like that_

"Then the Avatar State will trigger if I keep this up--"

"No, it won't, I'm a complete spiritual dunce, putting me through the wringer like this won't trigger anything if I don't have the right stuff--" Korra was madly spilling out all her securities usually sequestered in the back of her head, anything to stop the Lieutenant. "--please, _please_ , they're my friends--"

" _You're **not** the only one with a loved one in danger_!" The older man snarled, swiping his kali stick, and Korra flinched--but it didn't hit Bolin or Mako, just thin air. "You benders never think outside your own--"

Then the wall burst out and Lin Bei Fong and Tenzin blasted through, and Korra smelled Asami's perfume, felt her gloves as she picked the locks on her wrists.

###

"With their leader missing, the Equalists have escalated, making their former tactics look like a friendly disagreement...." called Shiro Shinobi's voice from the radio during the night, and Korra tossed and turned in bed, and found herself wildly wishing it was Amon's voice instead.

###

His comrades suddenly slammed to the side of the alley and knocked out by an unseen force, the Lieutenant's body freezing up, his blood...he recognized that bloodbending grip.

"Tarrlok," he hissed, and the Councilman stepped into sight of the halfmoon night.

"Catfish," Tarrlok replied, raising his hand up and lifting the Lieutenant higher. "Where is Amon?" His eyes were flat.

The Lieutenant ignored the stab in his chest at another reminder of his missing leader, instead barking out a laugh. This was rather rich.

"Still in-fighting among the shakers and movers of Republic City, then? Avatar Korra failed to share my original ultimatum with you?"

"You've met the girl--rather unagreeable sort, wouldn't you think?" Tarrlok said with his own laughing smile that never reached his eyes, while his hand closed into a fist and the Lieutenant gasped as the pressure in his chest increased, nothing to do with Amon but with his older, adopted and deranged brother. The bloodbender's twisted smile vanished, replaced with that cold flatness again. "Don't make me repeat myself. Where have you misplaced my brother?"

"I have very little intel on what the hell happened, I just know that somehow Amon was taken by Koh."

Lieutenant would not soon forget the sight of many legs and a shifting face yanking Amon away into some void of nothingness, nor how useless he'd been to protect his leader....

Tarrlok's eyes widened, and the Lieutenant could read the alarm in there--and had to accept that despite everything, Tarrlok still gave a damn about Amon. And that despite Lieutenant's own loathing of the man, he would do anything to get Amon back, even work with Tarrlok. He'd already allowed the Equalists to escalate, knowing Amon would not have let such a thing happen if he could help it.

"If you have any ideas to locate your brother, I'm all ears...."

Tarrlok narrowed his eyes and glanced away, thinking--though not releasing the Lieutenant from the bloodbending group. The Lieutenant managed to glance to his people, and was relieved to see their chests still rise and fall.

"Despite our differences, the Avatar shouldn't expect me to cooperate in any way with you--so she won't see me coming. Still, the girl is nothing but a half-baked Avatar, and barely that. Can't exactly force spiritual talent on her if there's none--not with our timetable, anyway...ah, but the Winter Solstice draws near...."

"Of course," the Lieutenant breathed. He'd really let his anger and fear grow out of hand, to lose track of time like that, not remember that upcoming date. "The veil between our world and the next should be thinner then...."

"'Should?' You've seen nothing supernatural with Amon over the solstice?" The Lieutenant was rather surprised to hear Tarrlok without a derisive mocking sneer, just sounding genuinely curious. But then again, Tarrlok had readily believed that Amon was taken by Koh. The Lieutenant had always assumed someone like Tarrlok would have little regard for the spirits' existence. "Unless you don't see him then...." Now there was the mockery.

"Amon seems to go into deeper trances then, and has expressed that the solstice makes entering the Spirit World easier," the Lieutenant said, instead of really rising to Tarrlok's baiting.

Tarrlok's teasing ended, he merely gave a considering nod. "I've also smuggled some Spirit Oasis Water--"

Lieutenant stared. "You're kidding."

Instead of preening, Tarrlok scowled. "It took years, but I've finally managed to get past the North's ridiculous amount of security and procure some, yes--"

Lieutenant still stared. "You didn't honestly think Amon would roll over in exchange for a chance to repair his face?"

"No, he's too stubborn, but it's _still_ for his own good--" Tarrlok waved an impatient hand. "But that purpose may fly out the window if it's all used up as a trigger for the Avatar's spiritual powers."

 _Hell of a big 'if' there_ , the Lieutenant thought of using the Oasis Water like that. The reasoning was sound enough, but he and Tarrlok weren't that experienced in spiritual matters like this.

The older man took a breath, and said, "Now, if we're going to have a truce and temporarily work together--"

"--can I put you down?" Tarrlok waved a hand--throwing the Lieutenant down. "Fine."

The older man knew he'd have bruises. He made no protest. The Lieutenant would do anything for Amon.

###

"You haven't taken my mask."

Amon lay flat on the ground, arms and legs spread, each limb pinned down by a claw of Koh's. Another had sliced through his shoulder, and remained there. Through the haze of pain and blood loss, Amon blearily wondered if Koh intended to slice his arm off. He found it better to concentrate on the dirt ground digging into this back, the scittering of other faceless creatures in the dark.

"From what I've heard, your face isn't much to look at." Koh tapped, tapped against Amon's mask. "Would you rather I take it, free you of such a cumbersome defect?"

"If not freedom, I would like answers. Why am I here?"

Koh's face flickered to a boar's spiked face. "Why shouldn't you be here? Do you truly have anything better to do than be graced by my presence?" And the Face Stealer pressed one delicate claw to his boar's cheek, while another started grazing Amon's own masked one, the scrtch scrtch wearing down Amon's nerves. "Especially when I am so willing to devote my precious time and knowledge to fully training you?"

"'Training?' For what?" Amon asked, dark brown eyes watching Koh's constantly changing face--boar's, a child's, a bird's, a Foggy Swamp insect's.

Amon's eyes widened once Koh snapped down a claw piercing the forehead of his mask, straight through the center of its blood red circle.

"There's much more to energybending than the Lion Turtle managed to teach you and Avatar Aang," Koh purred before burrowing the clawtip all the way through and touching Amon's forehead in between a crevice of scarring and

_and he was a child again curled on top of the kitchen counter. Just watching his siblings lose control and fall upon the firebender that had just burned mother, clawing, biting, they were so **angry**...and so helpless, the bender burnt them away too like they were nothing, **nothing**_

Amon gasped as the clawtip lifted, gulping in air and trying to regain control of his pounding heart.

"'Energy' in 'energybending'--it suggests all manner of things, doesn't it? Removing bending isn't the only thing it can do, it can do such astounding things to the mind, rather excellent for memory recall, to put it mildly...more like reliving it, wouldn't you say?...." Koh said, then lowered the clawtip down again.

Instinctively, Amon tried to twist away. "Now now," Koh said, "experience is the best teacher, I can assure you."

Koh pressed a claw to his foreahead again through the hole in his mask, and Amon's jaw clenched.

###

The Lieutenant had felt something very ominous about the cabin Tarrlok directed him to. The shouts of the Avatar from inside a human-sized metal box did little to alleviate such feelings.

He glanced to Tarrlok, leaning against the wall with arms crossed and glaring at the screeching box, a vein throbbing on his forehead. "I see your skills of persuasion have proved as masterful as usual," the Lieutenant remarked.

"Shut up, Catfish."

But the Lieutenant and Tarrlok didn't dwell long on starting an argument, both zeroing in on the box as the Avatar's shouts abruptly stopped.

Her voice was shuddering. "Okay, so Tarrlok was serious about working with you."

"Yes," the Lieutenant said.

Tarrlok arched a brow. "Maybe next time I should just electrocute the Avatar's friends instead of threatening to arrest them, if it gets results like this...."

The Avatar shouted obscenities at Tarrlok again, who continued to snipe at her, and the Lieutenant felt a headache start between his eyes.

" _Enough_!" He snapped, and while the Avatar's silence was instinctivley wary, Tarrlok's was instinctively angry, especially with the glare he aimed at the Lieutenant. The older man glared back at the Councilman.

"If we're going to work together, we're going to have to tolerate--"

"I never said I was working with Tarrlok!" The Avatar snarled.

"Did Tarrlok not make it clear that you've little choice in the matter?" The Lieutenant said.

The Avatar muttered something foul under her breath. The Lieutenant ignored it, and instead asked, "Avatar, do you have any questions before we try this?"

"Why _is_ Tarrlok really helping you? He just told me you two cut a deal about calming down the fighting--I don't buy it."

"Any _relevant_ questions?" The Lieutenant corrected.

"That is too relevant!"

"You don't need such information for this--"

"I do too--!"

"Oh forget it," Tarrlok snapped, rolling his eyes. "Amon's my younger brother. Adopted, if you must know. And no, we are not working together. Just think of it like sibling rivalry in overdrive, your crude mind should be able to comprehend _that_ \--"

"You freakin' weasel-snake--"

The Lieutenant actually stepped in between the Avatar's box and Tarrlok, as if that would help. "Look, you two can verbally rip each other to shreds after we return from the Spirit World."

The older man heard the Avatar blow out a frustrated breath. "Are we seriously all going? All of us? I have to be able to take all of you? I've never even gone myself, how is this going to--?"

"Didn't Tarrlok mention the Solstice tonight, and the Oasis Water?"

"Kinda of a freakin' stretch it'll work--!"

Tarrlok lazily examined his fingernails. "Better hope it works for your sake, half-baked Avatar--"

"Frankly, I don't trust you to find Amon if I'm not there with you," the Lieutenant cut in before Korra got into another argument with Tarrlok. "I have to go, no matter what. That's part of the arrangement." The older man looked to the bloodbender. "Ideally, Tarrlok will be able to come too."

The Avatar grumbled.

"We don't speak angrish, Avatar--is that a 'yes?'" Tarrlok said, a slight growl in his voice that eerily reminded the Lieutenant of Amon. (The younger man had admitted to the Lieutenant years ago that Tarrlok's advice on public speaking had proved beneficial, despite their estrangement.)

The Lieutenant closed his eyes as the Avatar ground out an affirmative.

"We're letting you out," the Lieutenant said. "Remember our warnings."

"More like Tarrlok's gonna bloodbend me out--"

"If you were more agreeable, I wouldn't have to go to that particular extreme--"

"Bite me, you f--"

"Just stop for two seconds," the Lieutenant said. _Definitely have a headache now_. He tried to concentrate on thoughts of Amon to banish that feeling away. It worked--the headache replaced by familiar worry and fear now. Maybe the headache wasn't so bad.

Tarrlok bloodbent the Avatar, freezing her in place, while the Lieutenant opened the door. Then Tarrlok pulled her out, having her nightmarishly float along. The Lieutenant chiblocked her bending points again, and the Avatar groaned.

"I can sit down by myself," Avatar muttered in a dark acidic voice.

"I'll be surprised if you can even meditate--"

" _Tarrlok_ ," the Lieutenant warned.

The Councilman arched a brow, but released the Avatar from his bloodbending grip. To the Lieutenant's relief, the young woman seemed to be cooperating now, falling into a lotus position.

The Lieutenant poured the vial of Oasis water before her, into a large bowl.

"Think the Oasis water is seriously going to work without my bending?"

"Even lore doesn't suggest that the Avatar's spiritual powers are completely dependent on bending," Tarrlok said, sounding vaguely bored.

"Just concentrate," the Lieutenant said, actually softening his voice.

Minutes stretched on. And on. For a moment, the Lieutenant worried Tarrlok would snipe at the Avatar again, but the bloodbender had remained silent, patient--though the Lieutenant noted he looked more like a wolf stalking its prey.

But both he and Tarrlok stiffened as the Avatar's eyes really and truly glowed white. Just as segments of lore had suggested. The Oasis water stirred in the bowl, then begin to glow. The Lieutenant and Tarrlok shared one look, before stepping closer to the Avatar and the Oasis water. They stiffened still--Lieutenant wondered wildly if they could turn to stone--as the water splashed out of its bowl, actually _grew_. It now ran past their feet to the metal box--then past the box, to the corners of the room.

"Well, my theory seems to be working. Mostly. Still surprising," said Tarrlok, his and the Lieutenant's eyes darting to the Avatar, then the Oasis water, which was up to their waists and almost to the Avatar's shoulders. Still she was in her trance, her eyes blotted out by white.

The Lieutenan'ts voice was deadpan. "For spirits' sake--"

Tarrlok's equally so. "How appropriate--"

"Don't bend this water--"

"I have enough self control, Catfish--"

The Oasis water's glow intensified, it swallowed the Avatar's head, the Lieutenant had no time to worriedly think she would drown before the water washed up his neck, Tarrlok's too--he had enough presence of mind to take a breath, and he caught a glimpse of Tarrlok catching one too--

And then the Lieutenant felt himself sink, the sensation of falling in a pool of water, but somehow colder and hotter than any water he'd ever felt before. And then his feet hit solid ground just as quickly, and he coughed, gasped, and did actually feel lke a catfish scrambling on the shore.

The breathlessness passed somewhat, or morphed into something bearable. The Lieutenant looked for his companions--Tarrlok and the Avatar were similarly drenched, their hair damp and undone, making them rather look like cats that had escaped drowning.

"Oh _wow_ ," the Avatar breathed, her blue eyes wide and gaping, and the Lieutenant followed her gaze. Strangely colored skies, twisting trees--it definitely matched one of Amon's descriptions of the Spirit World, it being a varied realm.

"We actually made it," the Avatar said, her voice dazed, and in awe. "I did it--!"

"Yes yes, we'll be sure to throw you another gala when we get back," Tarrlok said as he wound up his hair and squeezed the liquid out. "Now we need to find Amon before Koh does his worst."

The Avatar nodded, still looking thunderstruck, "Right, okay. Where to?"

The Lieutenant stared at the Avatar. Tarrlok ran a hand down his scowling face.

"So that spiritual breakthrough didn't bring up Avatar Aang's memory of where Koh's lair is?" The Lieutenant flatly asked, already wearily trying to come up with another plan. Amon would've come up with dozens and dozens of counterplans, that man's head was a maze of alternate ideas and viewpoints.

"You're completely hopeless," Tarrlok said, and rather pointedly flicked the liquid out of his hair into Korra's face.

She sputtered in indignation and from the water Tarrlok had splashed in her mouth. "You wouldn't even be here without me--!"

"So you're a glorified Satomobile--"

The Lieutenant was losing his patience. Again. He flicked his kali sticks on, electricity crackling. The Avatar flinched, while Tarrlok immediately focused on him, eyes narrowed.

"Let's just go and start looking."

Subdued, Tarrlok and Korra followed the Lieutenant.

###

_and the brother he'd worshipped and loved crushed Lieu in his bloodbending grip, and Amon could only watch, buried under metal wreckage he was too weak to lift, **useless** , begging Tarrlok to stop (like he'd ever done that before), shouting screeching screaming_

"No, that didn't happen, **it didn't happen** \--!"

"Good!" Koh beamed, and the Face Stealer removed the clawtip from Amon's forehead. The Equalist leader gagged and shuddered, turning onto his side and curling up. A minute later Amon weakly realized Koh had finally unpinned him, and he dimly felt the tears again in his flesh, the gash in his shoulder, but it still didn't blot out the all-too real nightmare of Tarrlok butchering Lieu.

"Very good, novice, you were able to identify the illusion! Knowing the difference between that and reality will greatly help you learn how to cast your own illusions with energybending--"

It was stupid, it was foolish, it wasn't thought out, it was impulsive, but Amon was angry, and terrified. Body protesting, he shoved his mask up enough to free his mouth and rolled over to spit in Koh's too close face (he wore a flying lemur's now).

"I sought energybending for one reason, and one reason alone," Amon growled in a deathly low scrape of a voice. "I have no intention of ever using it like _that_."

Koh snickered, and Amon was reminded of Yakone.

"Yes, well, you'll be here a while." Koh said, and finally tore off Amon's mask, something Amon for once felt absolutely nothing over, just empty. "I daresay you'll be singing a different tune by the end of it."

He pressed a claw to Amon's forehead again. No illusion this time, just reliving the first time Yakone ordered Tarrlok to bloodbend his arm to the breaking point. Amon finally passed out halfway through the memory.

_tbc in prompt 'red'_

　

　

　

　

　

　

　

　


End file.
